Month: July 2016

This week we were introduced to Cinema 4D and the basic functions on how to do 3d modelling.

This is the screen that you’ll be greeted with when you open Cinema 4D (R14) as well as your workspace. On the upper left side is your legend – it keeps track of the items that you have created on the project (much like Flash’s library). When modelling a new object, always make sure that it begins at coordinate 0,0,0 (x,y,z respectively).

These 4 buttons (located on the right left of your workspace) are your navigation tools throughout the entire modelling process in Cinema 4D. On the left is panning button, next to it is zoom in-zoom out button. Following right after it is orbiting button (view surrounding the area – note that orbiting doesn’t change the coordinate of the object, but rotating does). The last button lets you change the view of your workspace – you’ll be greeted with a perspective view, but you can change this to top, right and front view.

Here are some pre-setted simple shapes that you can use and modify in creating your object.

(A supposed ice cream cone and a ship with flat sail??)

Here are tools for you to create vector shapes. You can make them 3D by using the Nurbs functions – Lathe, Extrude, HyperNurbs, Loft, Sweep. Combining simple vector shapes and these functions could create many interesting shapes.

We also practiced on modelling a chess piece (reference picture shown in class on projector screen). The challenge was really to make the 3d model as accurate and precise as the real object – I struggled with creating the curves of the piece and the scaling of each parts.

Step by step process of creating the chess piece & the functions I used to achieve the shapes

Render view (lighting added)

01/08/2016

For our exercise we are supposed to make a 3d model of a lantern, as close as possible to the picture that we referenced it from. I’m still working on how to make the smaller details, as well as the frame of the lantern.

I’ve added several different poses to the character, as well as some accessories that doesn’t distract too much. After taking shots of the place that I want them to be, I can finally decide on the lighting. So far, I’ve only drafted the desktop background and one of the postcard image (site: UIC).

This beach image was taken in Bali – I plan to have some of my characters running on top of the umbrellas, so I’ll have to tweak on the compositions a bit so it doesn’t look too crowded.I chose to work on this picture because the lighting is interesting and I can play a lot on the shadowing of my characters.

Back of the postcards (variations)

QC 29/07/2016

I was suggested to crop the image (for the 1st postcard) to tone down the things that needed to be focused on. The idea of “meh” peering from the edge of the paper is Sir Em’s idea- “meh” will be featured in each and every one of the postcard, lurking around with a judging and suspicious face.

(Before & After editing)

For this one, I was told to improve the lighting, blur some areas (like playing with the focal length) and make the back part darker, so the focus on the character is strong.

I haven’t decided on the last postcard, a location in my house. Right now it’s cluttered everywhere, maybe I can have my characters clean up the mess on my table instead of me – I’ve got assignments to do. (Cheers)

Postcard 1 & 2

01/08/2016

SO FAR ON SHERLOCK SEASO—

During the weekend I’ve been working on the 3rd postcard image, as well as troubling myself with the desktop background. I’ve created several variations (including the draft I created in class) but nothing seems quite right.

I like how this one is very HQ and the lighting & shadows are very smooth (I used gradient – soft light) but I feel like there isn’t a story to it and the background is too crowded. So I decided to scrap this and start a new edit.

The story on this one is that con (red head) is trapped inside the laptop screen (which shows The Sims 4), while sans walks out freely on the real world. Feedbacks I received on this are that sans’ angle is off – the perspective needs to be fixed, and the laptop screen is too noisy. I agree with how noisy the background looks (I first thought that it’d look fine if I blur it out but noooo) so I decided to yet again start on another edit due to the increasing dissatisfaction on this one.

This image has a similar plot to the previous one – con is trapped inside the wine bottle while meh watches judgingly, and sans observes from afar.

(Pending feedback on this one)

I like this one the most because it tells a story, but at the same time the environment feels so fake (the picture was taken for photography class on depth of field experiment). This feels the most agreeable though, out of all the variations I did.

EXTRA

I printed out a mini character guidebook (just for fun!)

I also test printed the postcard images. One image looks way too dark so I’ll have that fixed.

The colored background (back of the postcard) encountered some problems while printing – the colors are too bright and the output has these lines on it. The printshop had tried to fix it to no avail – thankfully there three pieces that don’t look so horrible.

(They tried to reprint it using a different printer, but there are still lines)

I’ve came up with 3 different angles on how to represent Balikpapan as a city, or to give it a new image/identity. The 3 rough ideas that I’ve came up with (after brainstorming and researches) are Balikpapan as a tourist city, as “the 2nd Jakarta”, or as an industrial city (which it is already known for, but I’d like to focus on how it isn’t simply a city wealth in natural resources).

So far I’m most inclined to go on with the “2nd Jakarta” concept because it is the one that makes the most sense to me, based on my research and personal analysis on the city’s economical and geographical factor, as well as the sustainability of it and the extra values that the city has got to offer, which no other metropolitan cities can compete with (so far it is the abundance of wildlife, relaxation by the beach, that the city is as pleasant as it is developed).

I’d like to ask my peers on these 3 different re-branding ideas and see which one they would like the best, so I created a short introductory essay about Balikpapan which would equip my peers with the general knowledge of the city to have a fact-based opinion on the three ideas that I’m going to present to them.

Balikpapan is a seaport city located in East Borneo. Populated by 701.066 people in total, it is the second largest city in East Borneo and one of the fastest developing city in Indonesia. Often dubbed as “Singapura nya Indonesia”, Balikpapan far surpasses other cities in the nation in terms of orderliness and cleanliness. Long before its rise as a developing city, it has always been a site of oil drilling and refinery – which contributed significantly to the city’s wealth and eventual development. Currently, it houses many multinational companies such as ChevronTexaco (US), Pertamina (Indonesia), Schlumberger (France), Thiess (Australia), Total S.A. (France) and Weatherford International (US). The geographic factor allows trade to be done easily through Balikpapan, as it stretches along the coast. Naturally, Balikpapan has a long stretch of beach and has several beach resorts built for touristing and relaxation purposes. Not only that, it also thrives in wildlife attraction, with its sunbear sanctuary, crocodile breeding park and orang utan conservatory which cannot be found easily in other places in the nation. Despite its higher living cost compared to others, income received by workers there is high enough to adequately support the Balikpapan lifestyle. As it develops, Balikpapan is supported with the rise of shopping centres, even though they’re still sparse and lackluster in comparison to the more developed cities in Indonesia such as Jakarta, Surabaya, Bandung.

With this general knowledge of Balikpapan, which idea do you think would be the best in re-introducing / re-branding Balikpapan? Why, in your opinion, and the angle of your study/expertise from which you view the case in?

A) Tourist city
Balikpapan has all the potentials to be a hot tourist destination for people who are looking for some relaxation by the beach, or wildlife adventure in the forest. The city has significant advancement on tourist attraction, particulary on the beach resorts and water park. It offers a peaceful holiday in the nature for locals or international tourists who are seeking for an escape from the hectic routine of the metropolitan city.
B) The “2nd Jakarta”
Having won the Most Livable City (national) award in 2013, Balikpapan is by far a suitable city for people from the metropolitans to live in / migrate to. It offers not only a stable, clean and orderly environment, but also job opportunities in the industrial sector and trade. The town planning is a lot more ordered than Jakarta, climate is stable and the environment is much greener and less hectic than the demanding capital city. Even though it might still lack the metropolitan glam, it supports sustainable living and there are many recreational and relaxation spots that stressed out workers in Balikpapan can seek solace in. By encouraging people to migrate to Balikpapan, it would also reduce overpopulation in Jakarta – an ever-growing problem of which effect is getting worser day by day.
C) Industrial city

Known an acclaimed of the Oil and Gas town of Indonesia, Balikpapan lives up to its reputation. Located strategically along the coast, it has two ports and each are equally busy – loading with passengers and cargos everyday. Balikpapan thrives in the oil, gas and mining sector, but being rich in those resources isn’t the only reason why they’re successful. Their trade is supported by the city’s well-built infrastructure and business centers, and constant development being done to cope with the influx of international trades. It is a city which is much more than simply having something to harvest upon.

(Sketches, brainstorm and SWOT analysis to be inserted)

Responses from friends from various field of studies regarding the city re-branding idea:

Michelle, International Business 3rd year student (Resides in Melbourne, Australia)

I would think idea B – the “2nd Jakarta” as the best option, because:

– it has a “stable clean environment”. This will attract those who are worried about Jakarta’s environment, as it is very polluted.

– it received the “most livable city (national) award” in 2013

– a more orderly and less hectic city will lead to less stress and traffic jams for those working in the city, and will also attract those who have initially been hesitant to move to Jakarta due to the stress and traffic jams.

– it will reduce overpopulation in Jakarta itself, and (in the long run) reduce pollution and the sheer volume of vehicles in Jakarta

– Balikpapan supports sustainable living, something that is required in this day and age due to dwindling natural resources

– there are “many recreational and relaxation spots to seek solace in” for workers living and working in the city

I’d choose B. Indonesia needs new capital and Balikpapan has strategic position. There are many other places which could serve as tourist destination but not many could serve as a metropol

Alisha, Student at Faculty of Psychology Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia

(Transcription of a telephone response)

Balikpapan has always been known (lebih berkonotasi ke arah) industrial. The people are fastidious and very industrious (“nguli”) and the city is known to be very productive in mining, gas, etc. To really find out about which angle to re-brand Balikpapan in, data of the city needs to be collected – firstly on its economy, second about its lifestyle and third the natural recreation that the city has. From these three point of views, an adjective (or multiple) can be concluded for Balikpapan. For example, Bandung has just been re-branded and it is known as “kota kreatif”, which is really prominent lately (with its emerging design firms). It is also helpful to know about the reason that the city is most often visited for. What’s the attractive side about the city? And if Balikpapan has been awarded the “most livable city” in 2013, how “livable” is it really? Why is it livable, how relative it is in opinion of the wide public? What factor contributes to Balikpapan’s livability? Jakarta, a city which would be considered overpopulated which traffic everyday and periodic flooding problems is still livable to many people – the fact that it is still populated proves this – for various reasons (job, education, lifestyle that it offers). In my opinion, if you have collected data on Balikpapan’s economy, lifestyle and natural recreation, you’ll be able to find out what city Balikpapan is and from there you can brand the city.

After QC-ing and showing my array of doodles of different kinds of logos, Ms Claudia thinks that the ones that look like a silhouette (buildings/city silhouette turned to geometric letters) is a good idea to start on and that I should focus on developing those kind of logos. I’ve decided on developing the 2nd idea which is re-branding Balikpapan as capital-city worthy. Not too surprisingly, I stumble upon blog posts that also agree on Balikpapan’s potential as (East Borneo’s) capital city.

I’m still working on the collage, and I struggle to find more than 20 typefaces. I was suggested the font “Nevis”, a mixture of some of the bolder and sharp edged typefaces that I currently have in my collage.

I think it’d be great if I can find items found in Balikpapan and paste them on my collage, but I still have yet to find them. Other than showing scenery of Balikpapan, I’d like to also add some feeling, atmosphere and something local about the city into the moodboard, hence these images: the feet against water on the sand, texture & color of sea jewel, strong colors reflected onto the water.

This is the current moodboard for the “2nd Jakarta” idea which is still very weak. There is an image of a family that I included there to get the “pleasant living” atmosphere, but the subject of the photo suggests tourism more. I’m very fascinated by the strong colors of the construction helmet; I think that the bright colors would suit the energized, hard working and spirit of Balikpapan. Blue also represents trustworthiness, stability (stable living, you-can-trust-your-living-in-Balikpapan), as well as the sea. Yellow represents joy, happiness (a happy living, which suggests high living standard) as well as oil and mining that Balikpapan is rich in. I think that the colors blue and yellow are appropriate as Balikpapan’s identity, but I don’t want to exclude the natural riches that Balikpapan has yet, so I include a moss / forest green color and I’d try to see if I can put them together. (QC suggestion: Avoid the pastel blue colors, they don’t suit Balikpapan’s spirit and be careful with putting the green and blue together.)

In this week’s class exercise, we were required to make & layout 3 posters of different topics revolving around science and social issues. The 3 topics I chose are health, abuse (domestic violence & abuse) and human rights (gender equality).

For the poster regarding gender equality, I started off wanting to convey the message through emojis, with a “Don’t Judge” tagline. Another idea is to do wordplay on “babysitting”, breaking down the ‘baby’ and ‘sitting’ and represent it literally. The message is that anyone can do babysitting (baby sitting), not just female. These two come across too weak as PSA poster, and the do-not-judge poster would not be well received because of the word do-not (limitation prompts people to do breach it).

Viewing the issue from other light, I’m thinking of how the poster would bring insight on homosexuality to people who see it. The sentence “If only it was as easy as emoji” came to me while I was thinking about it and even though I think it could be a fairly good point, I have yet to come with idea for the visualisation of it.

With domestic abuse, I want to aim the poster to the abusers rather than the victim which has proven itself to be difficult because of how it would be received by them. Through the poster I wanted to send a message to the abusers that the violence they bring should have been returned to themselves (your punch is supposed to be your pain, not others because it isn’t their fault). But of course there would be no point in creating a poster which message would just be tossed aside. Abusers often blame other people for their own feelings, mistake and short-comings and manipulate their victim into believing that things are somehow their fault, that they deserve the beating / verbal abuse (humiliation, degradation) that they’re getting. Having a poster that have all fingers pointed at them would just not be well received by them.

In response to this, I want to think of how to make a poster that will shed light to the abusers that what they do is not going to do good to anyone, not even to themselves (“Their pain will not/cannot make you better”). This would be hard considering the nature of abusers, but it would be interesting to attempt on.

“Smoke-kissed brain” is the phrase I came up with after reading the article which explains how smoking could cause brain bleeding, even to social/passive smokers. I automatically connect the smoke to the blood – a person blowing out red smoke. To tie it to the brain visually, I thought of giving the red smoke a brain texture to it. Out of all the sketches on the 3 topics, I like this one the most and I think it is the most effective in communicating the idea that smoking is harmful, not only to the lungs but also to the brain. Anyhow, everyone would be freaked by the idea of their brain bleeding so it wasn’t very hard to come up with a dawning visualisation of it.

I’ll be revising the 2 latter ideas before drawing the poster out on the A2 papers.

Today we started working on our first assignment, “Poetry in Motion”, in which we have to represent the poem in a typographic composition which reflects / portrays the meaning of the poem itself.

My chosen poem is Fire and Ice by Robert Frost. I chose this poem because of it obvious duality and elements of juxtaposition. It is straight forward and simple in its wording, the tension tight, as the poem lets reader ponder on how fire and ice – desire (lust, greed, jealousy) and hatred (indifference, scorn, bitterness) would bring destruction to the world.

Some say the world will end in fire,Some say in ice.From what I’ve tasted of desireI hold with those who favor fire.But if it had to perish twice,I think I know enough of hateTo say that for destruction iceIs also greatAnd would suffice.

I received many interesting and helpful suggestions (and keywords!) after the recitation of it in front of the class. Many suggests that it is intense, with qualities of duality, polar/magnetism, clashing, destruction, revenge, payback, “about hurting someone”.

My own interpretation of this poem would be that even though fire and ice are two opposing elements – in appearance, color, senses, sight, scientifically – both could cause the same fatality to human. Lukewarm is pleasant, but too much fire will burn. Cooled drinks, shaved-ice are nice, while too much of ice causes frostbite. Two different things, but at the end of the day, when presented to mankind, they’re equals. Too much desire in a relationship could easily kill it as soon as it started it – can’t handle jealousy, constant needs and wants of each other. Hatred obviously destroys a relationship – indifference, no communication, doesn’t care of each other, or even to the point of wanting to harm because of the hatred. To me, the poem hints the vulnerability of mankind, sort of like whichever way you’re headed it leads to destruction. First part of the poem clarifies that the writer thinks that desire would be the cause of destruction, but second part of it says that if there should be another destruction, hatred is enough to do the job. It’s a kind of warning to the readers that both desire and hatred (fire and ice) are dangerous traits that human inherently possess, and either of them could put an end to anything as quickly. Obviously without hatred, everyone would start wanting everything on earth, and without desire, everyone would be indifferent to everything, no passion, no sentiment, no intent – the two cannot exist without each other.

These are the layout I chose to digitalise and they do look quite different from the sketches. Some of the layout that I like from the sketches aren’t really applicable on Illustrator (most of the time the type isn’t fluid enough to create the shape of the movement).

Personally, I like this one the most (especially the upper half of the layout). The typefaces I used for these (and most of the other layouts) are Georgia (most of the text), Bodoni BT Book Italic (“fire”, “twice”), Easy Street Alt Eps (“desire”), Cooperplate Gothic Bold (“HATE”), Trajan Pro (“but if it had to perish”) and bolded Georgia (“ice”).

I added multiple “so” and “s” that looks like it’s falling down to the word “some”, to visualise the plurality of the word. (At first I wanted to make it look like the end of a fire, but S isn’t sharp enough to suggest that imagery). I also repeated the “twice”, coloring them blue and red to represent the duality theme of the poem. The text gets looser as it gets to the end of the poem, like an ice melting. While sketching this one, I was thinking of a melting castle, hence the shape of the texts.

For the typeface, I chose classic typefaces because the poem is old and classic, with scripts to add emphasis on strong words. Although this isn’t the final layout yet, I’d like to keep this concept and polish this to make it look better, and see through other sketches – in hopes of perhaps encountering new fusion of ideas.

This week we headed straight on to our first (major) assignment, which is designing a self-promoting character. The character design should be based on our personality and the outputs will be in forms of postcards and desktop background. These vector-made characters will be placed at real-life settings (campus, home, and one free choice of place). Usage of smart object & smart filter will be exercised as we put the vector art into Photoshop and combine them with the background (image taken by ourselves).

This is a advertising campaign for fritz-kola “vielvielkoffein”, done by Rocket & Wink (found on behance). I find these hilarious because of the obvious wordplay. From “wachtel” which means quail (bird) to wachhund (watch dog, still normal) to wachbaer (watch bear), wachforelle (watch tuna), to wachhalla, wachilles (self-explanatory laughter); all of them posing in retrospect to the shape of the quail bird. The character design doesn’t have too much details but they’re cute, has strong visual impact and incite laughter.

Punny characterised illustrations by Mauro Gatti on Behance. This kind of shed light on how some English phrases/compound words are hilarious when taken (and illustrated) literally. I’m thinking of finding a phrase that’d describe myself in a nutshell to add a striking and hopefully funny characteristic to my design.

Illustrations done by Marylou Faure on Behance. This is the sort of style I am aiming for my character design, kind of art deco-ish and showing some exaggerated geometrical shapes. These characters, although simple, show a lot of personality through the colors and shapes used. Their poses also suggest strong personality and individuality; the different characters of several women.

There are some sketches and doodles going on; I have a vague idea on how I want my character to look, but nothing concrete yet and I feel like they lack visual impact. Hopefully with more research I can find new insights about myself and how to present myself in form of a 2D vector art.

Current moodboard

22/7/16

Sketches and mini brainstorming:

While doodling I thought about what trademark / iconic physical trait could this character have. The first few doodles were based on the thought of androgyny, combining the male-female symbol and put it as a physical trait for the character.

Then I realised that the shaded part (two parts poking out symbolising the gender sign) is kind of shaped like my hair and my fringe which tends to poke out to the right side, shaped by my glasses’ frame which it rests on.

It developed to this, one headed two legged (or hands, it could stand on its hands) thing. I excluded most anatomical parts because I want the focus to be on the head and I’m thinking of changing the hair colors as the mood of the character changes.

Many of my friends consider me to be very level-headed but that’s simply untrue (how did they get that kind of impression is beyond my comprehension).

23/07/2016

The character’s hair color changes and its limbs will be either outstretched our withdrawn depending on its mood. Blue haired is “sans” – chill, calm, normal-state. Red head with a kind of standing/tensing up pose is “con” – annoyed, angry, infuriated, at state of imbalance. Sans is Latin for “without” (Italian senza), while con means “with”. I used this theme because incidentally “sans” is like the short of my name. The changing of hair color is inspired from me being labelled as level-headed even though its untrue, so I put a twist to it and make my character leveled-head. The color indicates their level; sans is level 0, con is level 100. The closer the color is to the hue of red, the higher the level is. emo is at level -10. The one with squinted eyes (in the sketch its trait is ‘unamused’) is meh. and it is level 30.

Concluding our first assignment for this module, we moved on directly to the second assignment which is city re-branding (creating a new image or rejuvenating the image of a city in its essence). In this assignment we are required to create a new logo for the city that we chose, and merchandises that come with it.

The city I chose is Balikpapan, second largest city in East Borneo (Kalimantan). Its wildlife is abundant, the city has been associated with the sun bear, and it has good reputation of being a clean city with good town planning. Some also note its similarity with our neighboring trade country Singapore, subbing Balikpapan as “Singapura nya Indonesia”. This being said, the city also share another similarity with Singapore; its high living cost compared to other cities in Indonesia.

Balikpapan was the home of oil drilling & finery back in the 1900s, and still is the base site of Pertamina (who took over Shell at 1965). During the World War 2, oil production was halted in Balikpapan and the industry took a huge damage until repaired by the Royal Dutch Shell in 1950s. Because of its geographical factor (located by the sea, easy access for ships), Balikpapan is also a trading point. Many multinational companies set their Indonesian base company in Balikpapan. In 2013, Balikpapan was chosen as the “Most Liveable City” (measured once every two years), toppling its predecessor Jogjakarta (2009, 2011) off the title.

Considering these factors (which I acquired after cursory researching), I feel like promoting Balikpapan’s orderliness, cleanliness (keyword: “posh” perhaps?) and the coastal sites, rather than the wildlife (which the city is also abundant with). Right now I have the imagery of promoting Balikpapan as a city that metropolitan folks would feel comfortable living in (or, relocating to). Balikpapan has a stable weather throughout the entire year – no days are too dry or too rainy, is generally warm – which could make a more sustainable living than in Jakarta – unpredictable weather and harsh rainfall which leads to flooding almost every year. The city is developed enough that it has a lot of shopping centres, but it has natural sites that people can relax in as well (beaches, botanical garden, etc). The infrastructure is recognised as one of the best- its town structure neater than a lot of other big cities in Indonesia. According to my friend (whose family came from Balikpapan, but he himself doesn’t spend much time there either other than some occassional trips back to hometown), Balikpapan is like Surabaya but quieter, less populated, and is a lot quieter than Jakarta (maybe I can promote the relaxation factor?). Many businesses open up their offices there, so job isn’t scarce there either. The city is definitely very livable, and although the living cost is higher than some, the townfolks earning is also high (which results in high consuming power).

It’s a bit late, but after a week of no inspiration on what to video for the cinemagraph exercise, I finally took 3 videos – each with different characteristics from each other.

One video is taken from inside the car very early in the morning, videoing the car moving past by and the lights changing. View here!and here

Another is a shot of a foot (courtesy of Felicia’s nice sneaker which color compliments the surrounding nicely) tapping on a window glass – totally random. View here!

Last one features aesthetics which look very “kekinian” (current), and the moving part will be the lights reflected of the tea. View here!

I initially really wanted to take a video which has a story in the movements in the .gif (original idea was phone light going on in a dark room, revealing a face of someone holding and scrolling down the phone, and then the light goes off again — happens in loop) but the more I ponder about it the more I realise (and fear) that I won’t be getting anything done if I just kept thinking about it, without the actual resource to make the video happen. So I decided to stop being too wishy washy about it and just recorded little things throughout the day.

I’ll be working on the gifs tomorrow, and hopefully get more interesting shots to work on till the end of the week.

Now we will have to place the audios into the trailer – hopefully it can be finished by this week!

13/07/2016

Testprinted the cover – Faza will be printing the one to be submitted!

After several discussions we decided to add 2 more scenes into the trailer to prolong the duration. We’ve also started trimming the soundtracks and starting to assign them to each scenes / parts.

(Update)

Worked in two more scenes into the trailer – boy running and boy crying onto the pillow.

WIP (workspace screenshot!)

As for the sound & effects, discussions are under process and Gia has also selected a part from the Conjuring soundtrack which fits several scenes perfectly. Gia will be placing the audios into the animation so that it becomes a trailer in whole.